The fact is it's not that great a
record. Sorry for being an utter snob and claiming my personal
opinion as fact but it's the truth, youth. The thing is, I own all
of the Neurosis records on vinyl, all of them up to but not including
their previous album Given To The Rising. Ironically,
I only have that on cd. And that grates me a tad. I don't really
think that record is all that amazing either to be honest, but since
I own all of their other albums on vinyl, I kind of wish I had that
one of vinyl too. I actually picked up that cd from a distro at a
show we played in Warsaw with Speedhorn, around the time it came out.
The fact is, it was cheap and the guy who had the distro didn't have
the album on lp. I thought, fuck it, I'll get it on cd now so I can
listen to it on tour and then I'll pick it up on vinyl when I get
home.
The
problem was that when I got home the vinyl had long since sold out,
despite the fact it was released on a major-indie like Relapse. I've
never gotten around to buying it since. I love all the Neurosis
records up to and including A Sun That Never Sets and
even the album after that, The Eye of Every Storm is
a perfectly OK Neurosis record, and I needed Given To The
Rising purely to complete my
Neurosis collection. Of course, now it's sold out and for some
fucking reason another pressing was never made, the only place you
can find it is in second hand record shops or online. And of course,
it costs up to thirty quid, which it simply is not worth. And
therefore I've never bought it, although I've been saying to myself
for years that one day I'll just bite the bullet and fork out for it.
One day when I have a lot of spare money for some reason..
I just don't get
why a label, upon selling out of a pressing of a vinyl, simply
doesn't press more. Of course, I understand if it's a small DIY
label that has barely shifted a seven inch over the course of a
couple of years, but when it's a big label like Relapse putting out a
big fucking band like Neurosis, why limit the copies?
So the new record..
I'd heard it a few times and the truth is this. There are good
moments in pretty much every song on the album, but there isn't one
song that is great all the way through, and being that most of the
songs are at least six minutes long, there is a fair amount of
average Neurosis on the album. Of course, it's still enough to
justify buying the record. The album does have it's moments after
all. So, I've been pestering my mate Tim at Sound Pollution record
shop to let me know when the album arrives. I wanted to make sure I
got a copy of it upon release since it would most likely sell out
pretty quick and probably not be re-pressed, meaning that if I missed
it when it came out then it would be forever lost to the over the top
prices of the second hand market.
Tim messaged me
yesterday, telling me the record had arrived. “Cool, I'll be over
tomorrow to pick it up if you can save me a copy?” I replied. No
problem. But.... “Just so you know... it costs 339 kronors!”
What. The. Fuck? That's about thirty quid! I'm sorry, but fuck
that! I'm sure it's got a nice, shiny, gate-fold cover and I'm sure
the vinyl weighs about five hundred grams or whatever, but that is
nonetheless daylight fucking robbery. I've got a kid on the way and
nappies to buy for fuck sakes!
So I
guess, unless the record appears on Ebay or Discogs in a few years
time at a knock down price because whoever owns it realises it's not
that good, not likely I guess since quality doesn't really have
anything to do with value, then for the first time in my life, I'll
be making the decision not to buy a new Neurosis album. It looks
like my Neurosis vinyl collection is doomed to in-completion. And
since Given To The Rising was
probably the last time I bought an album on cd, I won't be obtaining
it on that format either...
I know
people are buying less and less records these days, even if vinyl
sales are on the up
again, they alone can not compensate for the vast decline in cd sales
since the only people who buy vinyl these days are record collectors
like myself, but be that as it may, surely hiking the prices up to
insane heights is not the way to make things better? I came close to
a similar decision a while ago when Godspeed! You Black Emperor!
released their long awaited follow up to Yanqui U.X.O. and
was a little taken aback by the steep price of that, which itself
came in at two hundred and fifty kronors, but I went for it anyway.
It was the first GYBE record for years, and it was really fucking
good. The price did sting a bit though...
The sad thing is I
really want to support my local record store, because horrifyingly
the record store is becoming a dying breed, and I understand fully
that the price of an album in the store is merely a reflection of the
cost of it coming in, but I'll be fucked if I'm spending over thirty
quid on a brand new lp.
On the other side
of the coin, there are still a lot of great mail-order distros out
there, selling punk and hardcore records at punk prices. But there
lies another problem. A lot of labels these days are hyping their
releases by only doing one pressing of a stupid amount, like one
hundred copies or something. There have been albums recently that
I've been after that have come and gone through distros before they
could even make it to the catalogue list, never to be seen again.
Two weeks later they're on Ebay for four times the original price.
What's the problem with doing a release of five hundred and then if
it sells out in a decent amount of time, pressing some more? I have
nothing against labels putting out a limited edition of a record, be
it coloured vinyl or a special edition cover or something, as long as
they press a normal run at the same time. But all of a sudden it
seems like it's more important for a label to have loads of
collectable records on their roster than just having loads of copies
of good records. Of course, the reality these days is that a band
selling five hundred copies of a seven inch is good going, more than
a thousand and it's a big release. My friend Stachel recently put
out the final Herätys seven and that sold out straight away. The
nice thing is that he immediately made an order for a second
pressing. If only every label was the same. I've literally come
across labels recently who have releases of seventy five copies.
What the fuck is that?
Ironically,
it seems the frenzy of record collecting is running in tandem with
the decline of record sales in general. Myself, I've never been
arsed about all that collectable shit though. I don't care if a
record I buy is a first pressing, tenth pressing or a re-release on
another label years later. As long as it has the original cover
artwork and it's not some shite re-working with a new cover and extra
songs like, sorry to be picking on Neurosis again, the re-releases of
Enemy of the Sun and
Souls at Zero, then I
don't care. As an example, I was at Trash Palace record store a
while back, a great second hand shop, and found two copies of the
first SS Decontrol record. One was a first pressing that cost five
hundred kronors, the other was a re-press on another label that cost
one hundred and fifty. Same artwork, same everything. No fucking
discussion.
It's all about the
hype I guess, whether it's a trendy scene like early 80's US
Hardcore, late 80's UKHC or Fucked Up releasing a stupidly limited
edition of a seven inch, hype costs money if you're not quick enough
or old enough to pick it up first or only time around..
There
have been happy discoveries of late though. As always when reading
documentary books on music scenes you discover a whole host of albums
you'd never heard of, forgotten about or just never got around to
buying. If you're reading a book like American Hardcore then getting
turned on to a lot of those more obscure records is going to cost you
an arm and a leg. I speak from experience.. Recently though I read
the final instalment of Ian Glasper's books on the UK punk and
hardcore scene, Armed With Anger,
which concentrates on the diverse underground hardcore scene of the
Nineties, and discovered and rediscovered a load of records that I'd
never bought or never even knew I needed.
Imagine
my delight when I tentatively scanned Discogs for the one and only
Kito lp, expecting to find it at anywhere between twenty and eighty
quid, and actually finding it sitting there waiting for someone to
give it a home for the sorry sum of just four pounds! I can
guarantee you the Teen Idles Minor Disturbance ep
would set you back a bit more than that. And the best part, the
person selling the record was Atko from Voorhees so we had a good
catch up to boot. From there it was green light ahead!
Voorhees/Stalingrad split, three quid, John Holmes lp, four quid,
first Bob Tilton seven inch, six quid, followed by quite a few more.
The thing with the scene from this period is although there was a lot
of great music, not many people outside of the UK really gave a fuck
about it. In fact, the most expensive record I found was the
re-press of the Hard to Swallow lp, and Kev assures me that Lil from
Household Name Records who put it out still has about two hundred
copies of that at his house.
That scene was
summed up completely by a guy we know who came to a Diagnosis?
Bastard! gig and was blown away when Sikas told him Bloody Kev was
the singer from Hard To Swallow. He was chuffed and almost a little
star struck by Kev, which is in itself hilarious. This guy even had
a HTS patch on his denim, so understandably Kev was chuffed
too...Until the guy said something about Hard To Swallow being a side
project of Iron Monkey... “”Were we fuck! We started about five
years before the guys started Monkey!” Typical. Of course, nobody
really gave a shit about Monkey until they split up..
It's all about the
hype...
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